First, some context (stuff that most of you know anyway): Every popular programming language has a clear evolution, most of the time marked by its version: you have Java 5, 6, 7 etc., PHP 5.1, 5.2, ...
Exactly that, never break backwards compatibility. Microsoft replaced the VB6 programming language with a new language that totally broke compatibility. So even today the 16 year old VB6 is still more ...